Feature Flick: Texas Junkyard Cuda Runs 110 mph Quarter Mile

If you’ve followed the series’ on the Motor Trend Channel for long, you know that Roadkill is one of the most entertaining. The plot usually involves purchasing a car of unknown repute or reliability in a location selected by a dart thrown at a map. Hilarity, late nights and bloody knuckles usually ensue. For this episode, the team of Mike Finnegan and David Freiburger find a 1967 Plymouth Barracuda at the CTC Auto Ranch in Denton, Texas that required two days of marathon wrenching to get the car into drag-ready order.

The engine, the long-running and reliable 360 cubic-inch V-8, was the least of their troubles. It started and ran, if not flawlessly, relatively reliably. The brakes however, were another story. With the brake issue finally resolved, the two hit the road many hours later than anticipated, on the way to Royal Purple Raceway in Houston, Texas.

Although surrounded by some of the country’s fastest drag cars and drivers in Texas, the international brotherhood of hot-rodders came together to support the rag-tag junkyard team and their junkyard ‘Cuda. Although it ran an unremarkable 14.7 quarter-mile, the car clocked an impressive trap speed of 110 mph.

Hours before they were going to depart Texas on the plane back to Southern California, an impromptu auction was staged for the car, and all the spare parts and tools that came with it. The winning bid of $3150 helped the pair nearly recoup the cost of the car. Watch the bloody-knuckle action below, and be sure to tune in to the Motor Trend Channel for hot enthusiast content, served up regularly.

Automobile offers a rich and varied examination of the automotive universe in all its forms - delivered by our stable of first-class editors and freelance contributors and illustrated with vibrant photography.